For love's sake : a social communications campaign that promotes shared parenting to parents to combat mum

• Main Authors: Ong, Elysia Kirstin Shi Ming, Fung, Rui Qi, Ong, Jayne Zu Hua, Pang, Wen Shuan
• Other Authors: Kang Hyunjin
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2020
• Subjects: Social sciences::Communication::Communication theories and models; Social sciences::Communication::Audience research
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/137563
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

This paper presents For Love’s Sake, a pilot social communication campaign that aimed to mitigate mum guilt through promoting shared parenting amongst working parents with children aged 0 to 3. In 2019, 4 in 5 Singaporean mothers experienced mum guilt, with more experiencing it earlier on in motherhood. Mum guilt may negatively impact mothers’ health and relationships and lead to depression. For Love’s Sake was conceptualised to address mum guilt, and was executed by four final-year undergraduates from Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University. Based on formative research and guided by the Integrated Model of Behavioural Prediction, the campaign aimed to increase the behaviour adoption of shared parenting in order to mitigate mum guilt. Shared parenting was operationalised into a 3-step cycle – ‘Communication’, ‘Confirmation’ and ‘Commitment’– which was featured in tactics such as edutainment videos and podcasts series. This ultimately led to For Love’s Sake exceeding output and input objectives and deliberating future, sustainable tactics with partners and experts like Dads for Life, Mums for Life and Love Bonds. Parents exposed to the campaign showed an overall increase in (i) the perceived susceptibility towards mum guilt, (iii) the attitude towards shared parenting, (iii) self efficacy towards shared parenting, (iv) behaviour adoption of shared parenting and decrease in perceived barriers preventing them from doing shared parenting. This paper details the campaign’s process and evaluation, including recommendations and limitations for future campaigners’ references.